Delilah in a Teacup
by lye tea
Summary: "All this time you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied." 50 sentences. Hannibal/Abigail


**A/N: **Not exactly happy with this batch, but I needed to do something to get myself writing again. Written for 1sentence on LJ.

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**Delilah in a Teacup**

**01. air**

Lungs burning, ribs diverging into an unholy schism, she gasps as he forces oxygen into her throat (resurrects her for another round).

**02. apples**

The apples of her cheeks are rosy and wind-raw (he imagines how they'll taste as he sinks in).

**03. beginning**

"Marissa's ending marked your beginning," he stated, plain and simple.

**04. bugs**

She thinks of the spiders on the ceilings and the centipedes in the cellar as his fingers leech her of blood.

**05. coffee**

There is always a fresh pot of coffee when she wakes, even though he is nowhere to be seen.

**06. dark**

In the abyss of what they call _heart_, he has carved out a tombstone for her: pristine, it will stand until he inters the body.

**07. despair**

Despair was realizing he had killed Marissa (remorse was knowing she had wanted to as well).

**08. doors**

Abigail feels the safest in his house because there were no locks because every door led to the same place—where he waits.

**09. drink**

"Have a drink," he whispers, "she's twenty-years aged."

**10. duty**

His conducts their lessons with consummate precision—careful, the blade is sharp—for anything else would be derelict.

**11. earth**

One day she will bury him under a tomb of sand, and that day must come soon (before he gets the chance to burn her instead).

**12. end**

Bordering the periphery of victory, he thinks this must be how Hannibal had felt centuries ago, and like his predecessor, he'd rather drink poison than let her win.

**13. fall**

"It's the landing that hurts."

**14. fire**

She shudders as he strokes her cheek, not daring to meet his eyes (terrified that he'll ignite the pyre).

**15. flexible**

No matter, she'll get it right the next time.

**16. flying**

Abigail hated flying and so, like the exemplary replacement father, he laced his fingers with her delicate ones and gently coaxed her calm again.

**17. food**

She could gorge and gorge herself forever, but nothing would fill this emptiness—this sick, spiteful malignance called abandonment.

**18. foot**

If she misbehaved, he could always send Will a gift (even better than the one of Jack's little lass).

**19. grave**

He doesn't tell her about his aunt because beautiful women were better left undisturbed in the grave.

**20. green**

Dr. Bloom (in her infinite miscalculated grace) gives her an ivy plant as a welcome present and instructs Hannibal on the care.

**21. head**

Fascinated, she listens to his rambles across history, of severed heads and guillotine promenades.

**22. hollow**

The first time he enters her, she winces from the pain but momentarily forgets the other ache—the hollow, dull throbbing in her chest.

**23. honor**

He would never sully her with mutilation; that would be undignified.

**24. hope**

A thread of silver jolts alive inside him as she turns her head and eagerly, he waits for that far-away look to fade (utter nuisance) before engulfing her whole.

**25. light**

She would only sleep with him in absolute darkness, only after all the lights have been suffocated.

**26. lost**

Like a lost lamb, she cries in confusion, and he gladly guides her home and mentally paints roasted shank with rosemary potatoes (wondering if it'd be bad form to use a shank).

**27. metal**

She calls that abhorrent noise _music_ and audaciously plays it late into the night (defeated, he settles for earplugs and Valium).

**28. new**

"Don't worry, Abigail, the fun lies in not knowing," (she ignores the flagrant intimation).

**29. old**

"Tell me again which one evolution favors," (he pretends not to notice her condescension).

**30. peace**

Distracted, asked him why only the guys were banished to the couch in movies; he half-mused to answer that gentlemen wouldn't transgress at all.

**31. poison**

On this tonight, this one, fine night, he'll string her up like sweet Justine and trim the chocolate marquise with Spanish fly.

**32. pretty**

As he glides the brush over an ink stone, pausing to let the fine hairs lick up each obsidian drop, he conjures the fine lines of her shoulders and the smooth ridges of her spine.

**33. rain**

She is drenched and shivering, and so he drapes a towel over her thin shoulders (all his vehemence evaporating).

**34. regret**

He doesn't regret sending her away—it's for the best, _hers and theirs_.

**35. roses**

She dreams of drowning in flowers, of countless petals swathing her in an impenetrable cocoon, and of him standing above, smiling pale as midnight (and then she soars awake, screaming).

**36. secret**

He has a secret tucked continents away, one he would never tell, not even to Abigail.

**37. snakes**

She notices how his tongue is forked, papery-thin and crimson: _redivivus with the turning of years. _

**38. snow**

A sparse patch of ice is all it takes and crashing she will be, bruised by the freshly birthed whiteness, and he will patiently sew her up again.

**39. solid**

_Invincible_, she thought (_formidable_, he was not).

**40. spring**

She is ready for whatever catastrophe recoils this time (he is ready for whatever burgeoning game she has devised yet again).

**41. stable**

Abigail is certain there's a lesson to be learned somewhere, but any logic—any notion of self-preservation—goes renegade when he crawls up her thigh, unbalancing them both.

**42. strange**

He looks anachronistic in these clothes (in this world) and then she remembers why he's brought her here.

**43. summer**

Whereas her friends traipse around the beach, exposed to the harsh sun and storms, she is safely curled beside him, napping like a well-fed cat.

**44. taboo**

He will never admit what they've done, for that would be an insult upon the lady's memory.

**45. ugly**

Tracing the contours of her face, he instinctively knew that she had been an ugly child.

**46. war**

Born in a war-torn country, he detected the same thirst for survival in her, and so her childhood history hardly came as a surprise.

**47. water**

His words swell like water, a thickened honeyed stream that circles around, forcing its way down her throat and into the void of her starvation.

**48. welcome**

Devoted, he traces the octave clef: this symphony—this pause—this reverberation of sacred vagaries will bind them both, at long last home.

**49. winter**

In December, she receives a letter from him (her first since exile) and wistfully wonders if it was cold in Florence.

**50. wood**

Impassive, impervious, he stands guard as her coffin is nailed.


End file.
